


I've Known You Forever, Now I Know You Better

by sweeterthankarma



Category: Atypical (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:07:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23145907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweeterthankarma/pseuds/sweeterthankarma
Summary: Tori22ferrante suggested, “domestic Cazzie, them getting to really relax and be around each other while still being really cute.”
Relationships: Casey Gardner/Izzie
Comments: 14
Kudos: 237





	I've Known You Forever, Now I Know You Better

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tori22Ferrante](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tori22Ferrante/gifts).



> Title comes from the song "Used to This" by Camila Cabello.

Everything about Izzie feels _new._

Though she’s been Casey’s best friend for awhile now— what feels like forever, honestly— being her girlfriend is different. It makes both everything and nothing change between them, in a way that wasn’t the same for her relationship with Evan. She and him never really had that in between phase, the time period of relentless, unwavering pining that made every moment leading up to their relationship feel so crucial and impending. 

Casey doesn’t even want to think about Evan— not like that, not anymore— but she has to be honest with herself: she feels so much more with Izzie than she ever had with him, and she and Izzie haven’t even gone past second base yet. Just holding Izzie’s hand is enough to make her feel like every nerve ending in her body is alight and on fire, anyway.

But Casey can’t lie; she still feels shitty about everything that had gone on with Evan. Sometimes, late at night when she’s alone and wading too deep into her thoughts, she’ll look into the mirror and see Elsa’s reflection more often than her own. 

_Cheater,_ her mind taunts, and she hates it. 

But the morning comes and _Izzie_ comes, walking through her front door for breakfast like she belongs there, little brother in tow, and suddenly all of Casey’s worries fade away. All she can think about is how alive she feels, how lucky she is, how Izzie _does_ belong there with her.

Izzie is Casey’s best friend first and foremost. She laughs the same as she always did, makes the same kinds of jokes, looks at Casey in the same amused, mildly condescending way she always did whenever Casey does something dumb. Now, though, her expression and her attitude is amplified, all for the better. She lets her affection show, unhindered and out in the open, and Casey blushes every time. She’s never been a blusher before, but she can’t help it. Even stranger, she finds that she doesn’t _want_ to help it.

Izzie is her girlfriend. That fact alone is enough to keep her swooning for all eternity.

* * *

After a race, Casey finds her in the stands. Izzie had twisted her ankle last week and though it’s just a strain, Crowley encourages her to sit this one out. Casey’s giddy, motivated, trying her best to play it cool, but when Izzie pulls her in close, hooks her fingers around the sweaty hem of her jersey and slots her lips against hers, Casey trips over her own feet. 

Izzie doubles over both with laughter and an effort to help Casey up. “You can run two miles in thirteen and a half minutes but can’t stand up straight around me?”

Casey bites her lip, trying not to turn redder than she already is. 

“Bold of you to assume I can be straight in any capacity,” she quips, and then adds, voice more hushed, “plus, you can’t do that thing...with your tongue...so quickly into kissing me and then expect me to…” she flails her arms, gesturing haphazardly. “You know, function like a human being.”

Izzie goes along with it, nodding like she understands. Her eyes glint dangerously, pleased and alight with mischief, and Casey feels both thrilled and terrified at the sight of her.

“Okay, okay, I got it,” Izzie concludes. She taps her temple before reaching for Casey again, and murmurs, “I’ll keep that information filed away for the future.”

Casey groans all the while she wraps her arms around her neck. 

“Of course you will,” she says, and she mentally curses her when her tongue slips against the inside of Casey’s lower lip once more.

This girl might be the death of her, but she’s more than okay with that.

* * *

Casey and Izzie kiss a lot. Like, _a lot._

It’s Casey’s new favorite thing— bordering on an obsession, she jokes— even when Elsa still mandates that they keep the bedroom door open. They’re not idiots, after all; they don’t want anyone to walk in on them as much as no one else in the house wants to walk in on them. Besides, they take advantage of the bathroom and blame their time spent in there on icing bruises and sore muscles. Elsa buys it, or at least pretends to. 

It’s funny. Casey doesn’t mean to be such a horny, desperate teenager, but god, she can’t help it. 

She tells Izzie this one day when they’ve finally broken apart from each other, taking a moment to catch their breath and giggle and grin at each other in that way that they do. Really, Casey thinks, they’re just best friends who kiss a lot. 

Izzie leans against the bathroom sink, looking both confident and shy, sure and hesitant as she keeps her eyes focused on Casey’s. Casey would probably be a little shy to admit something so forward with anyone else; it took a long time for her to tell Evan what she liked and wanted from him in regards to the frequency and intimacy of just holding hands. With Izzie, it’s easy. She says the words before she even has time to process whether she should or not, and she finds that miraculously, she isn’t afraid of what Izzie will think. 

Still, she kisses her one more time for good measure, to give her time to answer but also to just lift her smile up a tiny bit more. 

It works. Izzie beams, and admits, “yeah, me too.” After a pause, she adds, just as quickly as Casey had spoken, “I just really like you.” 

The words are a little clustered together, spoken too fast, but it’s an easy confession. Casey can tell; she feels the same way herself, after all, can’t stop thinking about it even when she has so many other things to think about: college applications, homework, track miles, the way that her achilles has been strained for weeks and isn’t getting better no matter how much she stretches and ices. She should be thinking of all these things, but instead, she’s just having another moment. 

She’s falling in love.

This realization hits her often, sometimes harder than others— and right now is one of those more intense times. She’s overcome with how good Izzie is at, well...being Izzie, and how lucky Casey is that she’s standing here, choosing her, showing up every day and being so damn cute while doing it. The fact that she feels the same way that she does towards her is enough to make her head spin, and as Izzie peers up at her through thick lashes, Casey’s mind is already rewinding memories it shouldn’t: the way her hands had felt slipping up her shirt just moments before, brushing against the bare skin of her midriff, almost tickling, almost so close to... 

Casey swallows for no reason, a nervous habit, and she steps closer to Izzie simply because she can. This is her girl. She doesn’t have to hold these feelings back, not anymore.

She smooths her thumb over Izzie’s knuckles and says, feigning seriousness, “I had no idea.”

Izzie nudges her hands away, chuckling, only to be tugged back in seconds later. Push and pull, just like the ocean. They’re magnetic. 

“I like you too,” Casey mumbles, lips against her cheek. “So much. You know I do.” 

Izzie kisses her again, hard, by way of confirmation. 

* * *

“No one’s ever made me feel the way that you do.”

It’s amidst a quiet moment that Izzie says these words. She and Casey haven’t been especially touchy tonight, not for any reason, but just because they fluctuate, as every couple does, in the frequency of their affection. Besides, it’s finals week and Casey’s cramming for chemistry and Izzie’s trying to finish reading “Romeo and Juliet” but keeps making jokes about “those sex obsessed straight people” and really, both girls’ grades would have been far better off if they studied separately. 

Still, despite the fact they’ve only kissed twice tonight and Izzie hasn’t called Casey “babe” or “Newton” even once so far, Casey feels fine. Her legs drape across Izzie’s lap and every now and then Izzie will run her hand up and down the bare skin of her ankle, soothing and present and _there,_ and it’s enough. It’s all she needs.

It’s the little things between them that matters, after all. Casey doesn’t want nor expect bouquets of flowers or boxes of chocolates or even spontaneous Slurpees, though Izzie does deliver them often and Casey certainly doesn’t complain. It’s the small, almost insignificant things that occur between them that mean the most, that makes both their hearts feel so light, so happy, so at ease. And though Casey has been reveling in the truth of it for some time now, Izzie is the first one to say something about it.

Her words hang in the air for a minute, maybe ten or fifteen seconds, and though she knows better than to get nervous, she does.

“Case?” she asks, squeezing the ankle in her lap. “Did you hear me?” 

Casey flips over from where she’d been laying on her stomach, pulling herself up to her knees, and Izzie’s worries immediately dissipate when she smiles at her.

“Neither have you,” Casey breathes out, “for me.” It’s a messy response, not smooth or as verbally organized as what Izzie had said, but that doesn’t matter because Izzie knows what she means and she’s wasting no time in clambering into her lap. She wraps her arms around her shoulders and kisses her slow, Shakespeare forgotten. It’s a hasty movement but tender, too; Casey is quick in meeting her lips but takes her time to frame a hand around Izzie’s face, dragging a thumb softly against her cheekbone. Izzie lets out a tiny sigh, the sound reverberating in Casey’s ears and making her echo her girlfriend’s sentiment a thousand times over, as if she hadn’t already agreed before.

“You’re perfect,” Casey says, barely pulling away from her mouth enough to speak. “You really are.”

She nestles her head in the crook of her shoulder, curling her legs underneath her to settle in, and when Izzie hums out a noise of disagreement, Casey grabs her hand and stills it.

“Shh. You’re adorable. Don’t you dare argue with me on this. I’m not in the mood to fight but I will kick your ass if I have to.”

Izzie laughs to the point where she snorts. Casey doesn't think she's ever felt more in love. 

* * *

A little over a month and a half into officially dating, Casey finds herself biting back those three little words. It’s too soon, and she isn’t even sure she means it yet— maybe a part of her just wants to get it out into the open, hoping Izzie won’t do it first and catch her off guard— but then Izzie _does_ do it. She does say it. And it’s the last thing Casey expects but everything she wants and all she can do is fling herself into Izzie’s arms, say the words back, and know that she means it. She’s always meant it.

This is love, she thinks, and thank god she’s found it. 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr under the same username, sweeterthankarma, where I'm always in my feelings about my favorite ships.


End file.
